


The Dragon Reaper

by constellationqueen



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Arranged Marriage, M/M, i'll add more tags later idk what's going on right now, not historically accurate, the archive warnings WILL be changed later but for now nothing's happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:28:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22306447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellationqueen/pseuds/constellationqueen
Summary: In order to save her son's life, Mary quickly and quietly arranged for Neil to marry the mysterious King of Khisite, far away from the death beds that await him in the Yakunen Empire. Neil, adrift and alone for the first time in his life, knows that this is the best outcome he could hope for, but with nasty rumors of Khisite and its king racing around the continent, Neil isn't sure that his mother hasn't simply traded his killing blow from one man to another.It's too late to back out, now, and even death is better than a life spent in the talons of the second Prince of Yakunen.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 33
Kudos: 125





	The Dragon Reaper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhhhh so yeah this is happening xD
> 
> I'm not good at history and I'm way too tired to be doing a bunch of research for this so none of the details are tied to real history. All customs and outfits are things I've just made up from scratch so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ no yelling at me about stuff like that bc I'm claiming artistic license right now dfvbdfbv
> 
> hopefully I can stick this story out????? wish me luck

The bells tolling cacophonously through the city are nothing more than harbingers. For the citizens, they’re a joyous announcement of Neil’s arrival; for Neil, they may as well be announcing his death.

It’s worse that Neil can’t even see them, his entire world limited to the confines of the enclosed litter escorting him through the city. There are windows, but they’re covered with tied-down cloth, allowing the passage of air but hiding Neil from the curious eyes of the commoners. He’s trapped in the incense-heavy air, dizzy as the litter rocks with each step taken by the four men carrying him.

He wants to rip off the cloth and crawl out through the window, but he can’t. It’s tradition, no matter how much he asked to be allowed to walk or even ride his horse through the city streets, towards the looming castle in the mountain. This is all tradition, and he’s going to drown in that word before the day is over.

Tradition is the white outfit he’s wearing – too light and plain to be a dress, but far from his preferred comfort and mobility provided by the loose shirt and tight trousers that he prefers.

Tradition is the ornate gold pins in his hair, holding it up off his neck and fastening the delicate white veil in place over his eyes.

Tradition is being forced to marry a man he’s never met.

He knows that it’s the lesser evil – marry the King of Khisite and avoid the second Prince of Yakunen – and he has had a nearly three-week journey to come to terms with it. But what has this lesser evil of tradition cost him? So far, the price has been his freedom and his mother’s life, but he’s sure there’s interest stacking up, and he’ll be expected to cough it up eventually. If he’s lucky, he’ll die before then, killed by a stray arrow or a curved blade held in someone’s silent hand within the walls of Eryas Keep, the mighty mountain castle of Khisite.

The kingdom of Khisite borders the Yakunen Empire’s western edge. It’s a small but strong kingdom that has evaded war with Yakunen simply because of how impossible they are to attack. Though Khisite’s land mass is nothing to scoff at, their population is low, with the overwhelming majority of their citizens living in the capital city. There’s only one path in and one path out, with a wide and wild river cutting through the middle. Neil’s never been to Khisite, but he’s had nothing but time on his journey here, and he’s been studying maps since before he could read. Khisite is a stronghold, and Yakunen has easier countries it can conquer.

Still, Neil doubts his safety here.

If Neil’s remembering correctly, there’s a historical track record of first wives and newlywed queens being slain in those castle walls. It didn’t happen after every marriage, but Neil imagines there are several floor rugs covering darkened stone where the blood refused to come out. There’s a rumor in surrounding countries that it’s the king who does the killing, that it’s just another piece of tradition in this mysterious country.

It’s one of only two rumors to have escaped the mountainous barricade of Khisite, though Neil’s not entirely sure he puts any stock in this one. While the deaths are recorded history, the tradition has yet to be seen.

The other rumor is about the king himself, and Neil’s only afraid of it if it’s true. It doesn’t help that he’s never seen the face of the man he’s meant to marry, and the whispers he’s caught in surrounding countries don’t paint a consistent picture. He knows that King Andrew of Khisite is blonde and blessed in battle, but there’s nothing of his personality, nothing of his behavior. From his reading of what few history scrolls were brought to keep him occupied on his journey, Neil has learned that Andrew has a twin, and that Prince Aaron largely stays out of matters of the court.

Aside from that, Neil is in the dark.

Outside the litter that has become Neil’s temporary prison, the bells continue chiming, cheers rise and fall with the lung capacities of their bearers, and – eternally – incense burns. It’s both sweet and warm, a gentle but insistent dance between the spring that blooms for him beyond the city’s buildings and the autumn that Neil knows is so important to the way of life for the people of Khisite. It’s not an unpleasant smell – in small doses, Neil may actually have found it to be something he would enjoy – but it’s heavy and persistent, and Neil doesn’t like having his senses bogged down.

He breathes deeply, slowly, and centers himself. For the first time in his life, he is alone. There’s a path set in front of him, one last promise made to his mother, one last rope to pull him to safety, but if he’s not strong enough on his own to keep his head above water, he _will_ drown. There’s no one left to dive in after him – there was only ever one person to begin with, and her blood has been added to the layers in his father’s killing room.

Under any other circumstances, in any other timeline, Neil wouldn’t be here. If Neil had been shipped off to Yakunen one day earlier, or if his mother had been killed the moment they were captured again, Neil would be Yakunen property by now. Fate was meant to match him with someone else, someone who’s been intent on possessing Neil from the moment they met as children. But his mother had bared her teeth at Fate and come out the victor.

So instead of remaining near his father’s home, instead of marrying into the Yakunen Empire for no reason except as a display of his father’s loyalty, Neil is… here. Being traipsed through the unwalled city of Emeria, the capital of Khisite, like some big public secret, hidden away as precious jewels are.

It takes longer than Neil anticipated to be carried through the main street of the city, but eventually the noise of the greeting crowd dies away, killed off by the closing of the castle’s main doors and the resolute silence that follows.

Neil waits as if for the killing blow, poised and breathing silently through his mouth as the litter is set down and, finally, the window fabric is untied and pulled away. A hand appears immediately, properly cupped and extended without intruding into the litter or showing off any of the man offering. It waits, motionless, for Neil to reach out and begin the process of escaping the box he now half wishes he would have suffocated in. Leaving takes time, and thought, and it’s too much fucking effort to unfold himself and all of the long material that drapes from his shoulders, but he does eventually manage. With the help of the proffered hand, Neil finds himself standing for the first time since pre-dawn.

He releases the hand as soon as he has his balance and doesn’t turn to look at the man.

Around him looms the entrance hall, vast and echoing and intimidating. The stone that makes up the walls and floor is dark, likely pulled directly from the mountain. Angular columns of white stone veined with gold lead deeper into the castle, towards an elegant large window and hallways that split to either side. The heavy doors that lead back outside look impossibly small and fragile situated among such vastness.

A woman stands a handful of paces directly in front of Neil, her hands folded in front of her waist, a patient smile settled gently on her lips and crinkling the corners of her eyes earnestly. But even though she looks homely and kind, there’s a certain tension in her shoulders and intelligence playing the edges of her gaze that Neil doesn’t trust. He thinks it might be best to steel himself around her, more than he’d already intended to in general.

“Prince Nathaniel, welcome. My name is Betsy. You must be exhausted after your journey.”

Neil doesn’t flinch at the use of his real name, though it scalds like hot iron.

He isn’t meant to bow in response to her greeting, which is something he remembers only barely in time. Never in his life has Neil been the highest-ranked person in a room, and often even when he was on the run he would find himself bowing out of respect at the people they met. But he is now and will continue to be the most elevated person in the castle, at level only with the king he’s about to marry. He corrects the bow into a brief nod, but he can’t place a smile on his face to return her own. He hasn’t been groomed for this, and even his half-royal breeding isn’t enough to save him. Put a knife in his hands and he’ll know exactly what to do, but navigating the eggshell-delicate interpersonal relationships of a royal court is far out of his depth.

Too bad for him. He’s going to have to learn.

“It was long, but not unpleasant,” he says, and the words feel stiff on his tongue. “I’m glad to have my feet under me again.” That, at least, isn’t a sugar-coated sentence to earn a little favor; it really does feel so much better to be standing instead of folded up on the bench of a carriage or on the flat floor of the litter.

Betsy’s smile broadens, her lips pulling apart as if perhaps, in different company and under different circumstances, she may have laughed. “Well, you’ll have ample time to be on your feet during the ceremony. I suggest you take every opportunity today to stay seated, even if you want to stretch out your legs.” Her words sound almost motherly, not that Neil knows from personal experience, but something about the way she says it makes Neil feel like she’s intentionally pushing boundaries that he doesn’t even know the location of.

“I’ll do as I like.” The response comes off his tongue quickly, not haughty or superior, but a simple statement. He’s trying to shore up his defenses while he can. Though he wasn’t raised as a prince, even when he did live amongst royalty, he knows that he is one, and he won’t allow himself to be pushed around just because he’s in an unfamiliar place.

His whole life, everything has been running and hiding, moving to the next town, and the next, but when it came time to fight, he was taught to plant his feet and swing. There are no weapons on him, strictly speaking, but with his reflexes and his mother’s training, anything can be deadly.

“Not today, you can’t,” a new voice says, entering the room from somewhere behind Neil. The tone is entirely untainted by strong emotion, stating facts and leaving no room for opinions. “Tradition must be followed until sunset. I’m afraid we’re both bound to it.”

Betsy, though facing the direction of the voice, clearly didn’t see him walk in either. “Andrew.” She says the king’s name with such familiarity that Neil can only stare at her, mouth slightly open, instead of turning around. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Two pairs of footsteps approach, one heavier and slower than the other, clearly keeping pace with longer legs. The handful of men around Neil turn towards the king and give a brief bow.

“It’s impolite to not greet one’s guests.” No conviction. Neil senses sarcasm but can’t hear it, so maybe that’s just an expectation instead of reality.

With a small scuff of shoes against stone, the approaching pair comes to a halt. They’re closer than Neil would like, and the only reason Neil hasn’t turned around is because he feels as if looking at the King of Khisite will permanently seal him here. He knows that the wedding is tonight. He knows that in just a few short hours he will trade his last name and, in doing so, effectively become Andrew’s property, but he wants those few remaining hours of freedom. The desperation to remain himself is worth betting his life on.

“Are you so strung along by tradition, Lost Prince, that you won’t even turn around to look at me?”

It’s not the goading that straightens Neil’s spine, but the moniker. He’s been preparing himself for someone to know who he is, to connect the dots even across the expanse of a continent. Even so, this feels too early. He knows that his mother would have had to pull strings as well as coin purses in order to get him here, but he hadn’t suspected that she would dangle the promise of rare royal blood in front of Khisite just to get him across the border. He hasn’t been the Lost Prince in years.

That boy died in the woods of a kingdom now swallowed by the Yakunen Empire.

Neil turns slowly, because tripping over the length of his outfit would make for a disastrous first impression. He tries to keep his expectations low, because no matter the whispers he’s heard, surely Andrew can’t really be some fallen god among mortals.

Andrew’s presence, once he’s in Neil’s field of view, is overwhelmingly magnetic, and Neil’s eyes draw to him immediately and not once away. The rumors, it seems, hold at least some truth. Looking at Andrew is like staring into a wildfire and not knowing how to run away. What draws Neil in is Andrew’s eyes, nearly golden and fully molten, partially hidden behind a low sweep of hair so pale it might just be spun directly from moonlight. Those eyes are the only thing about Andrew that seem truly alive. Too alive, maybe, because Andrew stares back like he can see through Neil to the scars and the past that he so desperately wants to lock away.

It feels like nothing will break this moment, as if they’re suspended, and they will simply stare at each other forever, but a choked sound – almost wounded – rises from the man situated at Andrew’s right, and shatters the tension in the air.

Neil breaks first to look.

He immediately stumbles back a step, dread spearing itself through his ribcage.

Blood drains from his face all at once, leaving him lightheaded, and he would be running already if his attire would allow him the movement, but he can’t seem to work up the strength and coordination to get himself to move.

He can’t be here.

 _He_ can’t be here.

“Neil?” Kevin says his name so softly.

Neil’s afraid that if he says it again, some part of him that he’s buried will dig itself out just to drag him down with it.

He opens his mouth to say something – anything – but Andrew is faster.

“Oh? Isn’t this a surprise.” He doesn’t sound surprised at all, but given his lack of emoting earlier, Neil isn’t sure if that’s because nothing gets through Andrew’s armor or if it’s because he’s known all along that Neil was never meant to come to Andrew first-choice. “Kevin, how do you know dear _Nathaniel_?” The emphasis on Neil’s birthname gets the point across perfectly – that Kevin not only knows him, but knows him well enough to have a nickname on the tip of his tongue. That Kevin slipped up and should have practiced better keeping his stupid fucking mouth shut.

By now, Neil’s recovered his composure, though his shock at seeing Kevin here of all places is still screaming quietly in his chest. Kevin hasn’t bounced back so quickly, only able to shake his head in answer to Andrew’s question while he continues to stare, wide-eyed, at Neil. Not that Neil blames him.

There’s a ghost in front of him, after all.

“Perhaps,” says Betsy, moving into Neil’s peripheral and gaining Andrew’s attention because of it, “now isn’t the time or place. Prince Nathaniel’s wedding preparations will take the remainder of the day, and I believe your schedule is full as well, Andrew. I’m sure this shared history can wait until after the ceremony.”

Andrew moves his eyes away from Betsy and settles them back on Neil. His irises have become liquid, churning like lava in the dimness of the hall. “Can it?”

That gaze is alienating and full of mistrust, but Neil’s not exactly surprised by it. There’s no way to prevent himself from feeling misplaced here. This is not his kingdom; this is not his home. The kingdom he should have been primed to rule is far away, on the opposite side of the Yakunen Empire. But from the moment of his birth, Zeria was never really meant for Neil. He was supposed to take the throne only after marrying Prince Riko, and then Riko would have taken over the kingdom and either driven it into the ground or used its citizens to fight against Yakunen. Neil will never get a chance to sit on that throne, and honestly he isn’t sure he even wants to.

“You weren’t going to trust me, anyway,” Neil says, chin lifted. “Whether you learn a few secrets now or later, my transaction is over.” He’s here now, and they can’t back out of the wedding without causing a war and likely upsetting the gods. And if Andrew decides he doesn’t want Neil now, the only place for Neil to return to is Riko’s ravenous grin. He looks away from Andrew, who still isn’t his king for a few more hours. “Tradition isn’t going to wait for us. I imagine we’re already behind schedule.” He doesn’t want to be married, but he doesn’t want to talk about his past right now, either.

He isn’t prepared to fully face Kevin, who knows too much already.

Betsy doesn’t waste any time, coming up alongside Neil immediately and placing her hand on his elbow. He stiffens from the contact, but she doesn’t pull away. “Please follow me, Prince Nathaniel.”

That name’s been said too much in too short a span of time for Neil to remain unaffected, so he flinches just a little as he follows the woman away from the entrance hall and into the depths of the castle.


End file.
